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Comment Re:Not sidestepping (Score 1) 88

Yes it is side stepping, because the second you unsnap that tether, the 'kite' becomes a 'drone' (Despite how much i despise that term being used for hobbyist RC craft). which, as of late, is subject to a slew of FAA regulations. Also, I suspect if you flew a kite high enough in the right place, (like in the approach path of an airport) the FAA would come down on you like a sack of bricks.

Comment Re:Illegal and Dangerous? (Score 1) 200

Illegal, because to film this, he probably flew above the 500 foot RC ceiling, as well as flying at night in a cloud of firework smoke makes following the "maintain visual contact with the aircraft" rule virtually impossible. Dangerous, because if the craft where to be hit, and not entirely disabled, it could easily veer into a vector that took it well out of pilot control, and end up crashing into the general public at large, all of which makes the FAA pretty unhappy.

Comment Re:Cost (Score 1) 228

You are right, the camera idea is stupid. The solution to your 'Chicken a la Salmonella' issue is to incorporate a probe thermometer INTO the actual oven, so you stick your chicken in the oven, unclip the probe from its holder on the inside of the oven, jam it in the chicken, and close the oven, then monitor the internal temperature of your chicken on the readout on the console of the stove, without ever needing to open the oven. (i guess that'd be what you call the part of the stove where the clock and whatnot is, never considered it before).

Comment Re:Your taxes at work (Score 4, Insightful) 501

It works in Israel because there is a fraction of the linear border distance to fence and patrol and maintain. Israel has less than 760 kilometers of fence, The USA/Mexico border is around 3,169 km long. It also crosses some of the most inhospitable desert on the content. This adds more than a little difficulty in patrolling and maintaining any sort of 'fence'

Comment To make it worth it. (Score 4, Interesting) 427

The key features to make a 'smartwach' worth my money, in my mind, starting from the hardware side:

1. E-ink display. Easy to read in daylight, can be illuminated from the side for low light use, extremely low power use.
2. Inductive charging. I need to be able to take my watch off and set it down on a stand, and pick it up in the morning knowing its charged, no fiddling with little connectors that get corroded by my personal humidity.
3. Decent water resistance. This is an extension of number 2, but vital. I need to be able to sweat, wash my hands, slosh a drink, and not be worried about ruining a multi hundred dollar piece of hardware strapped to my hand.

as for software features, I desire:

1. Show me the time without having to screw with it. - I don't want to be pressing buttons on my watch just to see the time during the day. At night, yes, a button for a light, but I need it to be a 'at a glance' function.
2. caller ID function, and ignore call function. This thing is linked to my phone, so most of its point is to be able, at a glance, to see who is calling me, and ignore the call if desired. Single dedicated button for this function would be best.
3. Volume control for headphones attached to phone. - say, I have my phone in a pocket/arm case, using headphones to listen to music or make calls. digging the phone out to change volume, or fiddling with tiny buttons on the side of my head at my headset sucks, It would be nice to be able to use a volume control on my wrist to adjust the volume of whatever i'm using. Remember, this 'watch' is supposed to be an extension of my phone. basic pause/play/skip function would be nice also.

Honestly, thats about it. The main thing that makes me dislike the current smart watch offerings is bulk, charging, and over-feature. There are very few things I will want to do on a screen small enough to fit on my wrist comfortably, and as such, I see the smart watch as more of a peripheral device, not a primary interaction vector for my devices.

Comment Re:Solar roadway? (Score 1) 448

You know, You made me wonder about the thousands of miles of roadway in the southern US that never see's snow, but gets hot enough to boil the tar in asphalt. What if you embedded tubing in the roadway, and circulated something through it to absorb the heat, and then used that to produce steam to spin turbines. (you know, thermal solar power style). Kind of the exact opposite of the glass solar roadway idea.

Comment Re:Some Public Records ... You Know ... Just in Ca (Score 1) 448

I found a business licence for WeTag Inc, https://mycpa.cpa.state.tx.us/... registered at an address in Houston TX , which, on Street View, is a little office block in the middle of a residential neighborhood. I also found a PO box in Plano TX suposedly attached to WeTagInc.com, but thats of little use. I find it odd that there is a business licence in Houston, but they claim to be in Plano. WeTag Incorporated PO Box 261956, Plano, Texas, 75026.

Comment Re:This fake too? (Score 1) 448

Ah, audio makes all the difference. She is looking for her keys, and activates the "find me" on the phone, and the keys start beeping. The part where they are only a few inches apart is the 'pairing' to add a new device to the system. (which brings up the popular critics point, that the bluetooth on the phone screen is OFF, so its obviously faked, but that is a whole other ball of wax)

Comment Re:This fake too? (Score 1) 448

That one pinged my "what the hell?" radar also, because my brand new, powered bluetooth headphones start losing signal at about 20 feet and 1 cinder block wall. I was curious what sort of witchcraft could push that distance out to 200 feet without a battery, and promptly found a stack of BS so deep, you could bury a tractor trailer in it.

Comment Re:Thanks for the tip! (Score 1) 448

Exactly. The whole point the critics of this project have is not that it is patently impossible to do, but rather the claim that they are able to cram all this technology into something barely larger than a guitar pick. There are other examples of bluetooth item trackers out there. There are examples of energy harvesting tech out there. The problem is that both of those things are, individually, much much larger than the form factor of the item this company claims to have shoehorned BOTH devices into. Couple that with the complete lack of evidence they have actually done it, and things start to look pretty suspicious.

Comment Re:Waxy cuticle and trichomes (Score 1) 33

True, this is nothing novel, but IT does incorporate cool electron microscope pictures and sweet slow motion video set to music, so It must be high tech.

on the other hand, Its odd that this subject came up, because it instantly reminded me of this: http://www.realclearscience.co... Because my first thought when I read the headline was "because they are fuzzy on a tiny scale" I know that the wax needles are a shade smaller than the 13 nanometers of amplitude that the researchers in the article I linked discovered humans that can detect by touch, but I do wonder if its pure coincidence that most leaves feel 'fuzzy', even visually smooth leaves.

Comment Re:Ocean garbage patches? (Score 1) 139

There is really not much alive in the atlantic garbage patch, which is where this tech would be best used at sea. (Which, if you've never heard of it, is a place in the Atlantic where a bunch of ocean currents sort of cancel each other out, and makes a place where all sorts of nastiness from all over the world collects, poisoning the area in the process)

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